


A Promise Made

by Nao



Series: The True Song [4]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, bran playing the game, game of thrones season 8, got s8, is the genesis of this fic, the truth always comes out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 14:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nao/pseuds/Nao
Summary: “I don’t want the moon, you idiot.  I want my brother back.  I want my King back,” Sansa replied, chest tight with tension.  She eyed him, frustrated to tears once more.  Swallowing hard against the lump that crowded her throat, as it had the evening before, she watched his hands clench over each other.





	A Promise Made

Sansa pulled the last roll of bread from the basket.  It was warm, even through her gloves.  She hadn’t eaten the whole day through, and her belly twisted at the smell of the dough.

“Mi’lady, will you have some stew?” one of the cooks called to her from across the yard, and Sansa raised her head to give the woman a nod. Looking back at her, from beyond the woman’s shoulder sat Jon, atop a camp stool, Longclaw grasped in a fist.  Their eyes met and it was like being renewed.  How often had she looked around this yard, Wolkan and Royce and Littlefinger at her shoulder, voices yammering in her ear, and none of them the rough rasp that she wanted.

And now he was here, but he may as well have been across the Narrow Sea.  She walked toward him, stopping for the stew the cooks slopped generously into her roll.  She nodded at them and walked on, pulled like a wave toward the shore.  She stopped before him, all the noise of the yard falling away, suddenly nervous.  

She spoke, as though they were alone, and not surrounded by hundreds of their people, of Dothraki, of Unsullied.  “Have you returned yet?”

“What?”  Jon looked up at her, eyebrows drawn tight.   

“I asked if you had returned yet,” Sansa repeated the words, tearing her eyes away from his, and clambering down to sit beside him.  Settling her shoulders beneath her furs, Sansa tried not to grimace at the ratty old cloak he’d chosen to wear.  It was the one she’d replaced for him at Castle Black.  The one he’d campaigned in, before they’d won back the North. She balanced the roll she’d gripped in one fist on her knee.  

He looked at her, face as blank as river smoothed stone.  Except for his eyes.  They crinkled at the edges as he stared at her.  “I’m tired, Sansa,” he began and then sighed.  “Tell me what you’re thinking of.” His mouth tripped over the words, voice taut.  

“Until I return, the North is yours, you said.  I held it for you.  Against Littlefinger, against our bannermen, against everyone.  All for you,” Sansa dipped her head, fiddling with her spoon, and her breath shuddered in her chest.  She fought against it and forced the words out.  

“You came back alive, but you aren’t the same man who went South.  The Jon I know would never have bent the knee, would never have betrayed his lords and people.  He would have remembered that life is worth nothing at all, if it means living under someone like her.” 

Sansa kept her eyes bent on her bowl, not wishing to see his lying face.  For that was the only explanation.  He hadn’t answered her question, when she’d asked why he bent the knee.  Jon, who before going to Dragonstone, had withheld from her like this, when he was not sure of his opinion.  He’d kept his silence until he was good and ready to speak.  Which was what he was doing now.  Sansa might even have let him; they were both tired to the bone with preparations, with arguments.  But the Night King was near, and every fiber of her heart told her that something was wrong.

 “So have you returned yet?” Sansa asked again.

“After the battle, after we win.  Then we’ll talk,” Jon replied, voice a low strained thing in his throat.  “Please Sansa.”

“It is a simple question Jon.”

“A simple question,” he scoffed and moved closer to her.  “You never ask simple questions.  You ask for the moon, and fool that I am, I would give it to you.”   

“I don’t want the moon, you idiot.  I want my brother back.  I want my _King_ back,” Sansa replied, chest tight with tension.  She eyed him, frustrated to tears once more.  Swallowing hard against the lump that crowded her throat, as it had the evening before, she watched his hands clench over each other.  

“I... your brother... I’m not your brother.  I wasn’t ever your brother.  Not when we were children, not at Castle Black, not here and now—.”

Sansa gripped his arm, bewildered, near tossing her bowl to the ground.  “What are you talking about?”

He stared at her, eyes wide and tortured, before shuttering closed.  He looked down.  “I can’t ever be your brother.  Not really.”  He glanced up at her, face smooth once more.  “Bastards aren’t ever what you think they should be.”

Jon shifted, and Sansa pulled her hand back to her lap.  It was cold.  She watched him stand, wordless.  

He glanced at her, and then away.  “I promise you we’ll talk about Daenerys and all the rest of it, when the Night King is gone.  I promise you.”

“If you fall,” Sansa began.  Jon interrupted her, none of the tension gone from his voice.  “I’ll protect you.”  He backed away, gave her a last glance, and disappeared into the crush of folk readying for the battle.  Sansa dropped her gaze to the roll.  Steam rose in thin swirls from the stew, but her hunger had gone.  In its place, a stone filled her belly.

“He’s right you know.”  Sansa swiveled to look over her shoulder.  Sam came forward, hands tight-fisted at his sides, eyes shining.  

“He can’t be your brother.  I should say he isn’t your brother.  Jon Snow went South and Aegon Targaryen came back.  They’re two different people, one might say.  One was a bastard, and the other is meant to be a king.  Almost poetry, that is.”

“Sam, have you lost your mind?” Sansa stood, and stepped close to the other man.  She lowered her voice to a hiss, sure that he must be drunk.  “That is _my_ _brother_.  My father’s bastard son.”

“He isn’t.  He wasn’t ever.  He was always a prince, the last living son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark,” Sam replied.  He shook a little, and tears gathered in his eyes, but there was nothing about him that spoke of drink.  Sansa drew back, mind passing and repassing over his words.  Over Jon’s face that morning at Jaime Lannister’s trial, his silence on everything except the battle.

She shook her head, lost.  It made no sense.

Then, she saw Bran.  Watching her, looking through her, as he almost always did now.  And she remembered his voice, his man’s voice saying _I’m the Three Eyed Raven now_.  Bran had seen her at the heart tree, had seen what had come after.  

It was truth then.  

Her brother, Jon Snow had not returned.  And if the truth became known, he never would.  The lords of the North would kill him, Daenerys would kill him, Cersei would kill him.  Just as her father had likely known.  Elsewise, why would he have lied for so long, even to Mother?

She sighed, squeezing her hands tight together and looked back at Sam.  He spoke softly, “If we survive, Lady Sansa, Daenerys cannot be allowed to take the throne.  It isn’t hers anyway.”  Sansa wanted to scream at him that it wasn’t meant for Jon either.  He wasn’t meant for throne rooms and courtiers.  For cities teeming with people and gold cloaks.  For dragons.    

He was a Stark of Winterfell.  His place was in the North.

But Jon knew the truth, clear enough, and nothing would stop him from doing what honor demanded.  Honor demanded that he protect the people of Westeros, and so he had made a deal with a woman who could help him do it.  Could she forgive herself if she did any less?

Sansa mulled the question, eyes scanning the crowd, seeking the face she’d longed for.  He was there, cloak stripped off, Longclaw belted at his waist, heaving barrels of pitch with the soldiers.

“The King in the North will take the Iron Throne by right of blood.  That is the message we will send to Cersei.  That is the message the Maesters of the Citadel will receive.  That is the message we will send to my Uncle Tully.  That is the message we will give to Lord Royce and the Knights of the Vale.  And when this night is done, all of us together will find a way to strip Daenerys of her armies and power.”

Sansa raised an eyebrow at Sam, who nodded, mouth drawn thinly.  “I’ll start with Lord Varys, I think.  He’s the most experienced at this kind of thing.”

Despite herself, Sansa felt amused enough to give Sam a small smile.  He returned it, eyes still ashine with tears, and walked off toward Bran.  Far behind him, Jon stood before one of the bonfires.  

He had made a promise.  To protect her.  To protect the North.  He had never promised to return, but she would find a way for him.  A way for him to stay in Winterfell, where he belonged.  


End file.
